Woodcock Lauren, Coogan Nicole, Ringe Julia, Frascione Nunzianda
Department of Analytical, Environmental and Forensic Sciences, Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, King's College London, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH, UK.
City of London Police Fingerprint Laboratory, King's College London, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH, UK.
Forensic Sci Int. 2025 Nov;376:112584. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2025.112584. Epub 2025 Jul 26.
Fingermark analysis is a relatively underexplored area in wildlife forensics, partly due to the complex surfaces of evidence, which often have varying porosities and textures. There is a limited amount of literature exploring cyanoacrylate fuming (CAF) and vacuum metal deposition (VMD) for latent fingermark enhancement in wildlife crime. This research addresses the scarcity of current findings by applying VMD and cyanoacrylate fuming on pangolin scales and rhinoceros horns. Using different metal depositions, an optimal VMD method has been identified to enhance latent fingermarks on a rhinoceros horn and pangolin scales successfully. Findings demonstrate that manual deposition is significantly more efficient than automatic deposition for enhancing fingermarks. In addition, Gold/Zinc (Au/Zn) VMD coupled with sequential CAF was the most effective technique, within these investigations for fingermark enhancement on pangolin scales. Au/Zn VMD was found to be most effective on the interior areas of the rhino horn, though fingermarks grade ≥ 3 were also obtained from the exterior region of the rhino horn. CAF alone was found to be effective at visualising fingermarks on pangolin scales and rhino horn. A secondary dye staining step with BY40 or R6G was successful on the non-porous pangolin scales, but dye staining significantly reduced the quality of marks on the porous rhino horn. This study offers valuable insight into using VMD and CAF coupled with sequential techniques for fingermark analysis on wildlife samples. This novel area of research can assist in the identification of perpetrators and support criminal prosecutions to protect and preserve endangered wildlife.
指纹分析在野生动物法医鉴定领域是一个相对未被充分探索的领域，部分原因是证据表面复杂，其孔隙率和纹理往往各不相同。探索用于增强野生动物犯罪中潜在指纹的氰基丙烯酸酯熏蒸法（CAF）和真空金属沉积法（VMD）的文献数量有限。本研究通过对穿山甲鳞片和犀牛角应用VMD和氰基丙烯酸酯熏蒸法，解决了当前研究结果的不足。通过使用不同的金属沉积方法，确定了一种最佳的VMD方法，成功增强了犀牛角和穿山甲鳞片上的潜在指纹。研究结果表明，手动沉积在增强指纹方面比自动沉积效率显著更高。此外，在这些针对穿山甲鳞片上指纹增强的研究中，金/锌（Au/Zn）VMD与顺序CAF相结合是最有效的技术。发现Au/Zn VMD对犀牛角内部区域最有效，不过在犀牛角外部区域也获得了等级≥3的指纹。单独使用CAF被发现对可视化穿山甲鳞片和犀牛角上的指纹有效。在无孔隙的穿山甲鳞片上，用BY40或R6G进行二次染料染色步骤取得了成功，但染料染色显著降低了多孔犀牛角上痕迹的质量。本研究为使用VMD和CAF以及顺序技术对野生动物样本进行指纹分析提供了有价值的见解。这个新的研究领域可以协助识别犯罪者，并支持刑事起诉以保护濒危野生动物。
